Orlando soccer stadium: Good idea but watch the tax dollars

Right now, Orlando leaders plan to spend $175 million renovating a football stadium.

Also right now, Orlando leaders are talking about spending another $100 million, including $30 million from the team, to build a soccer stadium.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but shouldn't these two things be considered together?

I mean, if I were building a house and wanted to host parties for 25, 50 and 100 people, I wouldn't build three rooms. I'd build one to handle them all.

To you, I might sound sensible.

To soccer boosters, I am an idiot. I don't understand the complicated, nuanced world of futbol. Or that "soccer-specific" stadiums are the only way to go. I should just shut my yap and open my wallet.

That's exactly what they told folks up in Seattle — that putting a soccer team in a football stadium couldn't be done.

Only, Seattle did it anyway.

And now the Seattle Sounders are the most successful soccer franchise in the U.S.

Whereas the average club attracts 18,800 fans a game, Seattle attracts more than 40,000 in the stadium it shares with the NFL's Seahawks. That's far more than it could have ever served in the stadium the soccer folks wanted.

By bucking conventional wisdom, Seattle not only survived — it thrived.

Other teams have shared stadiums, too. So forgive me if I don't just roll over for the talking points that have been proved wrong.

Listen, I like the idea of bringing Major League Soccer to Orlando — for many reasons.

Soccer is a sport of the future. It's something we don't already have. And compared with the other sports this town has courted, it is a pretty good deal.

We just spent $487 million on a basketball team we already have. We're talking about another $175 million on a football stadium that doesn't even have a football team.

For $100 million, we're told we could bring something new to town — a major-league sport with an growing following. I like that.

But I also like to do things the smart way.

See, I've never been a fan of the pompom shakers whose cheer is "Spend! Spend! Spend!"

That spend-first-think-later mentality has gotten this town into trouble in the past. It's how we ended up talking about needing a new NBA arena soon after the first one opened because — oops! — someone put the luxury boxes up at the ceiling.

Oh, but the pompom crowd finds financial debates so B-O-R-I-N-G. Just focus on the fun! And being a "big league city"! And on how winning teams make the community unite and feel awesome about itself.

(The pompom people don't talk much about that last part when the Magic are 15 and 38.)

The pompom crowd also wanted us to snatch up the Magic's first, pathetic offer to contribute only $10 million to a new arena. The more sober among us pushed for (and got) a lot more.

The pompom people will have you peppy — but broke.

I want Orlando to get soccer. But I also want us to seriously consider whether it makes sense to dump money into two separate stadiums — only one of which has a team — when other communities have found more effective ways to serve both needs.

And I want us to scrutinize every aspect of the deal.

(And while we're at it, maybe someone can tell me how it is that we can build an entirely new soccer stadium for $100 million, UCF can build an entire new football stadium for $54 million — and yet the Citrus Bowl folks say $175 million will barely pay for a short-term renovation.)

We have to thoroughly vet how we're spending public money on sports ventures that subsidize private interests.